The world is also full of wonders, which is why I’m foolishly in love with it. – Ian McEwan, Nutshell
Wonder in the natural world is accompanied by the same feelings of inherent meaning that characterize love and beauty. Ideas like the complexity and fragility of the brain, the progression of natural selection, and the intricacy of DNA have the most meaning not in light of their veracity, but the wonder that they inspire. Each of these — and other scientific ideas — adds meaning to characters’ lives because they suggest that the world is orderly.
However, as we have seen for love and beauty in art, using science to create meaning has its own set of difficulties. Finding wonder in science can be subject to, as Jonathan Greenberg has noted, “recursivity.” In a discussion of motivations in Enduring Love, he suggests, “[The protagonist’s] Darwinism…reduces human motives to an unconscious and biological calculus” (Greenberg 100, 102). If our motives are
predetermined, then our actions and feelings might also be determined by the series of chemical reactions that preceded them. If Darwinism does lead to a sort of biological reductionism, as Greenberg suggests, then we can only be awed by science while being reminded that it is because of chemical reactions — a “biological calculus” — that we
have emotional responses at all. Any feeling of meaningfulness, and the impulse that drives us to seek meaning, would be a purely mechanistic process. Thus, scientific knowledge, while enabling feelings of meaningfulness, also brings into question whether or not meaning exists as anything other than a product of inflexible genetic pre-
programming. Such circularity complicates the idea of using science as a foundation for meaningful aesthetic experience. As McEwan writes in his essay “End of the World Blues,” which was anthologized in Christopher Hitchens’ The Portable Atheist,
“I would argue that [scientific] knowledge has a beauty of its own and it can be terrifying. We are barely beginning to grasp the implications of what we have relatively recently learned…Among other things we have learned that our planet is a minute speck in an inconceivably vast cosmos;
that our species has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of the earth;
that humans are primates; that the mind is the activity of an organ than runs by physiological processes….” (364)
Science can be beautiful and incite wonder, but it is the same source of beauty that reminds us of how we fit into an overall, materialistic order that, while testifying to our uniqueness, reminds us of our common origins with the rest of the universe and the mechanistic processes from which everything — including ourselves — emerged.
Even though Perowne continually claims to be a reductionist, descriptions of his work suggest that he is deeply invested in the wonder that science allows him to
experience. When Perowne says that he “regularly penetrates the skull,” the adverb reduces his job — which requires years of training and has been met with “modest success” only recently — to something routine, almost mundane (281). His referring to the “skull,” instead of the brain, is also reductive. The brain, not the skull, is the “most complex object in the known universe” (86). By emphasizing his work on the less
complex organ — bone — Perowne makes his work seem less remarkable than it actually
is. He has “chosen brains because they were more interesting than bladders or knee knots,” a reductive reason for his choice of profession; however, whenever he
experienced the beauty of neurosurgery, “his ambition became a matter of deep desire”
(46). He tells the story of a patient, his future wife, and her operation that struck him as beautiful — “[the patient’s] particularly beautiful face was reassembled without a single disfiguring mark.” That something so complicated could be done to the brain – she has a tumor removed from her pituitary gland – without leaving any outward mark left
Perowne with “excitement about the future and impatient to acquire the skills” (46). Such excitement seems to have lasted him throughout his career. “[O]perating never wearies him…absorbed by the vivid foreshortening of the operating microscope as he follows a corridor to a desired site, he experiences a superhuman capacity, more like a craving, for work” (10). Instead of seeing his job as a neurosurgeon as a means to an end — making money, “drilling” into the skull — he sees it as something that adds meaning to his life beyond its teleological purpose because it allows him to experience beauty — and do beautiful work — on a daily basis. Indeed, performing neurosurgery is so effective at satisfying Perowne that he “craves” it (10).
While Perowne finds surgical procedures beautiful for their swiftness and efficacy, he also sees great beauty in the brain because it is so fragile. He describes his work with the precise detail that we would expect from a consultant neurosurgeon, but he repeatedly emphasizes the beauty of the brain by giving florid descriptions of fragile brain structures in addition to their Latin anatomical terms. Despite his self-professed literary philistinism, Perowne uses figurative language when describing the brain, especially when remarking on its fragility (67). For example, the arachnoid is “that
gossamer covering of the brain through which he routinely cuts. The grandeur.” (55).
Even though Perowne sees the arachnoid often — cutting it “routinely” — he has not been desensitized to its beauty. He calls it “gossamer,” a word first used to describe a
“fine filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs, spun by small spiders, which is seen floating in the air in calm weather” (OED). The arachnoid is as fragile as the silky thread of a spider web. That something so fragile has evolved recalls to him the final lines of Darwin’s Origin of Species, suggesting that the fragility of the structure contributes to
“the grandeur;” the fragility itself testifies to its beauty. “There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin writes, “…from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being, evolved” (Darwin 478). The beauty of the arachnoid is a testament to the beautiful process that produced it, a reminder that there is
“grandeur” in a view of life that relies not on a god speaking things into existence immediately, but a long and natural process of evolution.
In another operation, seeing the fragility of the tentorium makes Perowne describe it with figurative language, suggesting that it has so much meaning for Perowne that he cannot express what he feels without using art. Being able to identify the tentorium suffices for a neurosurgeon; no thoughts about its beauty are particularly important to completing an operation. However, Perowne describes it as “a pale delicate structure of beauty, like the little whirl of a veiled dancer, where the dura is gathered and parted again” (9). Perowne begins by calling the structure “pale” and “delicate” — ideas that are probably important for neurosurgeons to identify the thin, flesh-colored sheet of tissue — but then calls it a “structure of beauty.” Then Perowne makes an analogy to two previously unrelated things, much like a poet. He sees the tentorium as something in
motion (a dancer), and — perhaps most significantly — invokes a form of art (dance) in the description. In addition, he had already mentioned that the tentorium was “delicate,”
but comparing it to a “veil,” “whril[ing]” around a dancer emphasizes the fragility of the structure because veils are usually made of very thin, delicate, and translucent fabric.
Even though there are naturalistic reasons why the arachnoid or tentorium had to take this form in order to function well, Perowne does not reduce their fragility by a naturalistic explanation. Instead, fragility is beautiful to Perowne because it shows how ordered the brain is; if something very tiny goes wrong, the brain will not function properly.
Near the end of the novel, the connection between beauty and fragility climaxes, showing that regardless of how fragile the brain is, Perowne will always find it beautiful.
As he tries to distract Baxter after he has listened to the poem and become hopeful, Perowne tries to pass off a neurological research paper on a treatment for Parkinson’s disease as a clinical trial for patients with Huntington’s disease. “The globus pallidus, the pale globe, is a rather beautiful thing, deep in the basal ganglia, one of the oldest parts of the corpus striatum,” he says (235). Even though he is nervous — “[h]is voice quavers, as a liar’s might” — he does not lose his admiration for the beauty of brain, calling the basal ganglia a “rather beautiful thing” (235). Perowne’s response to beauty – wonder – seems almost innate; no amount of emotional distress can diminish it, and, importantly, neither can instances of its failure. The basal ganglia is a collection of structures that includes the corpus striatum, and the corpus striatum includes the globus pallidus. All of these
structures work to enable movement and present abnormalities in patients with both Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease. Huntington’s disease attacks neurons in the brain, and, as F. O. Walker, MD, a professor in the department of neurology at Wake Forest
University, observes, “Striatal medium spiny neurons are the most vulnerable” (219).
These specific neurons are directly connected to the globus pallidus. When Perowne talks about the globus pallidus, he is referring to the specific part of the brain that is most vulnerable to Baxter’s disease. He even remarks on its beauty to Baxter, whose condition demonstrates “…how the brilliant machinery is undone by the tiniest of faulty cogs, the insidious whisper of ruin, a single bad idea lodged in every cell, on every chromosome four” (94). While the “machinery” is brilliant, it can be destroyed by something “tiny,” a
“whisper” and a “single bad idea.” Its beauty does not save it from being extremely fragile. Even though Perowne knows this and has fragility of this specific brain part manifested in front of him —manifested and wielding a knife — he still finds the globus pallidus to be beautiful. A manifestation of its fragility does not make the brain any less beautiful for Perowne. Instead, the fragility testifies to the order of the brain, and such order is beautiful. The beauty of the brain becomes inherently meaningful; Perowne does not reduce it further and instead regards it with unmitigated wonder.
Perowne thinks that his work has an intrinsic artistic quality that allows for a nexus between science and art, suggesting that the two are similar because they both provide experiences of beauty. He calls Mr. Whaley, the consultant when Perowne was in medical school, a “maestro” after he finishes an operation, neurosurgery to orchestral conducting (36). He describes himself as “something of a master in the art” of “[clipping]
the neck of a middle cerebral artery aneurysm” (6). Calling himself a “master” makes him sound like a virtuoso; when we think of “great masters,” usually painters like Michelangelo or Raphael or composers like Beethoven come to mind. The technical language — “middle cerebral artery aneurysm” — highlights the deep level of precision
required of his work, which is not unlike the exacting nature of realistic painting or composing a sonata. Later in the novel, he remarks on the “limits of the art….of
neurosurgery as it stands today,” suggesting that neurosurgery itself is an art form (263).
In another instance, Perowne compares poets to neurosurgeons. “But he understands how eminent poets, like senior consultants, live in a watchful, jealous world” (130). All of these suggest a connection between science and art that leads to wonder and meaning.
The final operation of the novel displays the deepest connection between science and art. In an interview with Zadie Smith for The Believer, McEwan called the moment when Perowne begins the surgery “a moment of artistic engagement.” While listening to a recording of the “Goldberg Variations,” Perowne
“…takes a sponge on a clamp and dips it in a bowl of Betadine solution.
The tender, wistful Aria begins to unfold and spread, hesitantly at first, and makes the theatre seem even more spacious. At the very first stroke of sunflower yellow on pale skin, a familiar contentedness settles on Henry;
it’s the pleasure of knowing precisely what’s he’s doing, of seeing the instruments arrayed on the trolley, of being with his firm in the muffled quiet of the theatre, the murmur of the air filtration, the sharper hiss of oxygen passing into the mask taped to Baxter’s face out of sight under the drapes, the clarity of the overhead lights.” (258)
Perowne sounds like an artist beginning a painting. The “sponge on a clamp” works like a paintbrush, and the Betadine solution is described as “sunflower yellow.” Such a
description seems unusual for an antiseptic, but “sunflower yellow” is a common shade of oil paint and brings to mind Van Gogh’s series Sunflowers. When Perowne begins to prepare the antiseptic on Baxter’s skin — which is “pale” like a blank canvas — he makes a “stroke.” The word stroke recalls a brushstroke, instead of a smear of antiseptic.
The operating room is called a “theatre,” which has the effect of making Perowne’s work seem like an artistic performance. Much like the studio of a painter, the operating room is
full of satisfying aesthetics. The “instruments arrayed on the trolley” and the “muffled quiet of the theatre” work together for Perowne to experience “a familiar contentedness.”
All of these suggest that both artistic and scientific elements are working together to produce something deeply meaningful: an aesthetic experience of beauty.
Artistic and scientific elements combine in another art form in this scene, music.
The multilayered connections of different types of aesthetic experiences give greater meaning to Perowne as he does the surgery. The music reflects how Perowne handles the operation; art is reflecting science. He chooses to listen to Bach’s set of Goldberg
Variations, which was initially composed in 1741 for the clavichordist Goldberg to play for the Count Kaiserling when he had insomnia (Gordon 67). Just as the beauty of the variations had a healing effect then, helping the count overcome his insomnia, it helps Perowne (or, at least, makes operating more pleasurable) as he is mending Baxter’s skull.
In addition, the music mirrors Perowne’s surgical procedures. The aria will “unfold and spread,” which is what Perowne is doing to the skin on Baxter’s scalp as he begins the operation (258). Baxter’s skin is “parted,” and “the long incision is stretched apart like a wide-open mouth” (258).
Even the recording that Perowne chooses reflects his intention to heal and emphasizes the strong connection between science and art. Perowne has many available options; “[i]t is difficult to name a well-known harpsichordist or a Bach-specialist pianist who has not recorded…the Goldberg Variations” (Davidson). Perowne chooses “Angela Hewitt’s wise and silky playing which includes all the repeats” (257). That Perowne choice of Hewitt’s playing over the “showy unorthodoxies of Glenn Gould” might suggest that Perowne is not going to do anything unusual in the operation. He will not do
anything “unorthodox” even though he is operating on someone who, hours before, threatened to rape his daughter. Before this scene, Perowne’s wife had warned Perowne not to take revenge on Baxter, and even though Perowne never seems to seriously
consider doing that, it remains a possibility until Perowne cauterizes the clots in Baxter’s brain. When Perowne picks Angela Hewitt, he displays a sort of conservatism reflected in his decision to treat Baxter as he does all of his other patients. The beauty of the music parallels the beauty in surgery; in each one, beauty itself is preserving life (or at least making it more pleasant) by being able to heal.
In addition to wondering at the beauty of the brain, Perowne finds meaning in the beauty of natural selection and the origin of life and consciousness. These two sources of beauty can be understood as narratives, telling a story of order emerging from chaos.
These stories require that we look at life reductively, examining only its biological processes, but such processes form a narrative that can be meaningful. “Just like the digital codes of replicated life held within DNA, the brain’s fundamental secret will be laid open one day. But even when it has, the wonder will remain, that mere wet stuff can make this bright inward cinema of thought” (262). Perowne expects that consciousness will be explained empirically; “as long as the scientists and the institutions remain in place, the explanations will refine themselves into an irrefutable truth about
consciousness” (255). Because the brain has a “secret,” it will be a constant source of curiosity until its “irrefutable truth” is discovered.
Even after our curiosity is exhausted, and we have found such an “irrefutable truth,” Perowne thinks that we will still have meaning because science will continue to produce wonder. Perowne compares the solution to consciousness to the “digital codes of
replicated life,” suggesting that how consciousness works is analogous to DNA in that it is a mechanistic process; the final result could — as DNA has been — be wholly
digitized on a computer. DNA does not need any immaterial component to be
understood; the same will apply to the present mystery of consciousness. We can learn everything about our consciousness, and even if what we learn also suggests that our thoughts are mechanized, we will still wonder at the brain because scientific progress will not change the meaningful narrative of contrasts. “Mere wet stuff” creates “this bright inward cinema of thought,” suggesting that it seems surprising that something so rudimentary – “mere wet stuff” – could result in our consciousness (254). The word
“mere” contrasts with “bright,” and the word “stuff” seems dismissive when we consider that it is referring to the biological processes that allow for thought. This story – order emerging from chaos – will exist even if we are able to explain exactly how the brain works. Thus, even when consciousness is understood at the same level as DNA replication is, knowledge will not threaten the ability of science to produce wonder.
Indeed, Perowne concludes, “That’s the only kind of faith he has” (262).
This peculiar profession of faith contrasts with Perowne’s previous commitments to rationalism and reductionism because it is not faith in science itself, but in the wonder
— something non-empirical — that it inspires. As Graham Hillard has commented,
“…Perowne’s confidence in science seems itself to be imbued with spiritual significance” (142). Science means more to Perowne than providing truth; it also provides something that can only be accessed “spiritually.” Larry Bouchard echoes Hillard when he suggests that Perowne “…does think of his materialism as a kind of faith” (451). Perowne’s “confidence” or “faith” in science seems to be that science will
always be a source of wonder. Earlier in the novel, Perowne thinks, “It isn’t an article of faith with him, he knows it for a quotidian fact, that the mind is what the brain, mere matter, performs” (66). Perowne does not have “faith” that the brain is a function of matter. His faith, instead, seems to be a declaration that science is wonderful and will always be wonderful. He extends faith in the progress of science as well as its ability to make his life meaningful by being a source of wonder. These are things that are not empirically provable — one points toward the future, which is always uncertain, and the other deals with meaning, which is not a scientific domain at all — and thus need a sort of faith to buttress them. It is this aspect that leads Perowne to regard science with religious-esqe belief.
This semi-religious faith is shown to be in the irreducible wonder that science gives, and not in science itself, when Perowne talks about natural selection with his daughter Daisy. They are discussing a line from Philip Larkin’s poem “Water,” which begins, “If I were called in / To construct a religion/ I should make use of water.”
Perowne says that if he were to make a religion, he would use evolution.
“What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generations spawning by infinitesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tragedy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging and with them for
morality, love, art, cities–– and the unprecedented bonus of the story happening to be demonstrably true.” (54)
Perowne suggests that natural selection makes a good creation myth because it forms a powerful narrative. He stresses the idea that we cannot imagine it ourselves; the
unfathomability of the “myth” makes it a constant source of curiosity. The “sweep of time” is “unimaginable,” generations “numberless,” and steps “infinitesimal.” There is an